I had a map of a spot in the Iron Creek area that indicated there was some Jasper there.? It intrigued me enough that I was willing to do a little hiking to explore the area.? Chuck and I headed out there today.? As you can see this is steep terrain.
Mighty Steep Country
We didn’t head out until 9:00am and planned to explore this area before heading up to Pinto Creek to do a little rockhounding and photography.? I located a spot that was not to far from the site and we hiked down the very steep slope to what is an abandoned rock quarry.
Over grown and abandoned
Chuck was the one who found the first piece of Jasper.? That caused us to intensify our search.? Chuck worked a ledge that looked promising and I checked out the talus slope below him.? I could? see what looked like a medium sized piece of jasper, but when I got there it was huge.? 37lbs huge.? I decided to haul it up so Chuck could get a look at it.? I also found several other smaller pieces in the talus.
After letting Chuck rave about the nice jasper, I checked out the cliff face and located what I think is the location where some of the material was coming from.
Pockets of Jasper
This spot was on a very steep part of the cliff face, and looked like it would require some serious hard rock mining to extract any material.? I decided to wait and work it another day.
We then decided to head back to the car.? I was determined to haul the big one out, even though I didn’t bring a back pack. (Exploring only 🙂 )? There was an abandoned road that we could use to lessen the strain on my arms and shoulders.? It was only 1 mile to where we could get to the car.? It turned out to be one tough mile carrying that 37 pounds and other gear.
Here are some pictures of the material.
My complete haul.
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- Nice pastels
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- The back side
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- Multi colored
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- Chuck called this the estuary
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- Nice patterns
We never did get to do anything at Pinto Creek.? Oh well there will hopefully be another day to play in that area.
I had a friend cut the big one in half so that it would fit into my saw.? Here is what it looks like.
Cut and ready for further work.
Thanks for joining us.
chasfir
Gorgeous! What will you do, cut it up? I can’t imagine carrying a piece of jasper that large…the biggest I’ve seen on my own was maybe 5-8lbs I would guess and I left it behind, lol. I have too much jasper as is. I found, what I’m going to call, my first piece of carnelian! Hehe, it looks like some quartz with a carnelian coating and lights up beautifully. It’s the first time I’ve found anything like that on the creek I go to. I’ve found some pastel pieces as well, which have really puzzled me, so it was interesting to see you mention them. Must be fairly common then? I hope you’re having a great summer!
Dorothy: I have already had it cut in half. Now I can fit it in my saw and finish cutting some slabs from it. My summer has been going pretty well. Have been doing some remodeling of the house, so haven’t gotten out much. Hope that will change this fall.
chasfire
How was the inside?! That’s the part that fascinates me, because you never know what you might find. Was there any cool patterns?
There were some cool patterns in the middle. I haven’t had time to cut any slabs from it yet, but will hopefully get that done soon.
chasfire
I absolutely love how rich jasper can be in color and patterns. I’ve found a few pieces that are a variety of colors that contrast each other, as well as those subtle gradients, like from yellow to brown. I have one piece that is both yellow and green. Please post a picture of the inside! 🙂
Dorothy: I agree on the colors and patterns found in Jasper. I just posted a picture of the inside of the big one found.
chasfire
Oh wow, very cool! Thank you for posting that! Now I am dying to know what a few of my pieces might look like on the inside, lol. I think I might head up to the creek on MSH I go to this weekend. The flooding last winter really changed the creek and there has been an abundance of material this year. Thank you again for posting that. If further cutting reveals anything more I would love to see! 🙂